A trailer or preview traditionally refers to a commercial for a feature film that will be exhibited in the future. Like other commercials, one purpose for offering a trailer for a feature film is to stimulate interests among the audience so that some individuals will choose to view the actual film, e.g., in a cinema. Nowadays, video previews are not limited to the film industry, but have ubiquitous applications when a brief showing of a longer video is desired, e.g., for a television show, a music program, or even a homemade birthday party recording.
Video previews generally are brief. By way of example, the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) requires theatrical trailers to be limited to no longer than two minutes and thirty seconds. Therefore, a movie trailer usually only consists of a few abbreviated scenes from the film. To better attract viewers, it is common to select scenes from the most exciting or otherwise noteworthy parts of the film. The same principle generally applies to other types of video previews.
Currently, online video platforms provide a static video preview for each featured video, such as for a movie. A static video preview may contain a few selected video clips from the actual video. However, the static video preview is usually generic for all viewers. Sometimes, different versions of static video previews may be offered in different regions, languages, or time periods. However, static video previews do not differentiate diverse individual preferences of viewers. As a result, a static video preview may arouse interests for some users, but fail to do so for many other users.